We study the supercurrent in quasi-one-dimensional Josephson junctions with a weak link involving magnetism, either via magnetic impurities or via ferromagnetism. In the case of weak links longer than the magnetic pair-breaking length, the Josephson effect is dominated by mesoscopic fluctuations. We establish the supercurrent-phase relation (CPR) along with statistics of its sample-dependent properties in junctions with transparent contacts between leads and link. High transparency gives rise to the inverse proximity effect, while the direct proximity effect is suppressed by magnetism in the link. We find that all harmonics are present in the CPR. Each harmonic has its own sample-dependent amplitude and phase shift with no correlation between different harmonics. Depending on the type of magnetic weak link, the system can realize a \varphi_0 or \varphi junction in the fluctuational regime. Full supercurrent statistics is obtained at arbitrary relation between temperature, superconducting gap, and the Thouless energy of the weak link.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, November 23, 2018, Landau Institute, 11:30 amKonstantin TikhonovStatistics of eigenstates near the localization transition on random regular graphs

Dynamical and spatial correlations of eigenfunctions as well as energy level correlations in the Anderson model on random regular graphs (RRG) are studied. We consider the critical point of the Anderson transition and the delocalized phase. In the delocalized phase near the transition point, the observables show a broad critical regime for system sizes below the correlation volume and then cross over to the ergodic behavior. Eigenstate correlations allow us to visualize the correlation length that controls the finite-size scaling near the transition. The critical-to-ergodic crossover is very peculiar, since the critical point is similar to the localized phase, whereas the ergodic regime is characterized by very fast diffusion which is similar to the ballistic transport. In particular, the return probability crosses over from a logarithmically slow variation with time in the critical regime to an exponentially fast decay in the ergodic regime. We find a perfect agreement between results of exact diagonalization and those resulting from the solution of the self-consistency equation obtained within the saddle-point analysis of the effective supersymmetric action. We show that the RRG model can be viewed as an intricate limit of the Anderson model in spatial dimensions.

We report the experimental manifestation of even-odd parity effects in the transport characteristics of insulating Josephson junction chains, which occur as the superconducting gap is suppressed by applied magnetic fields at millikelvin temperatures. The primary signature is a non-monotonic dependence of the critical voltage, Vc, for the onset of charge transport through the chain, with the parity crossover indicated by a maximum of Vc at the parity field B*, We also observe a distinctive change in the transport characteristics across the parity transition, indicative of Cooper-pair dominated transport below B*, giving way to single-electron dominated transport above B*, For fields applied in the plane of the superconducting aluminum films, the parity effect is found to occur at the field, B*||, such that the superconducting gap equals the single-electron charging energy, Δ(B*||)=EC. On the contrary, the parity effect for perpendicularly applied fields can occur at relatively lower fields, B*⊥≃ 2Φ0/AI, depending only on island area, AI. In this case, the parity effect occurs in sync with formation of the single-vortex state of the islands in the chain. Our results suggest a novel explanation for the insulating peak observed in disordered superconducting films and one-dimensional strips patterned from such films, which occurs at a finite magnetic field.

The joint statistical properties of two free energies computed at two different temperatures in the same sample of (1+1) directed polymers is studied in terms of the replica technique. The scaling dependence of the free energies differenceon the two temperatures $T_{1}$ and $T_{2}$ is derived. In particular, it is shown that if the two temperatures $T_{1} < T_{2}$ are close to each other the typical value of the fluctuating part of the free energies difference is proportional to $(1 - T_{1}/T_{2})^{1/3}$. It is also shown that the left tail asymptotics of this free energy difference probability distribution function coincides with the corresponding tail of the Tracy-Widom distribution.
Europhysics Letters, 116, 40004 (2016); arXiv:1703.04305

Quasi-one-dimensional systems demonstrate Van Hove singularities in the density of states $\nu_F$ and the resistivity $\rho$, occurring when the Fermi level $E$ crosses a bottom $E_N$ of some subband of transverse quantization. We demonstrate that the character of smearing of the singularities crucially depends on the concentration of impurities. There is a crossover concentration $n_c\propto |\lambda|$, $\lambda\ll 1$ being the dimensionless amplitude of scattering. For $n\gg n_c$ the singularities are simply rounded at $\varepsilon\equiv E-E_N\sim \tau^{-1}$ – the Born scattering rate.
For $n\ll n_c$ the non-Born effects in scattering become essential, despite $\lambda\ll 1$. The peak of the resistivity is split: for $\varepsilon>0$ there is a broad maximum at $\varepsilon\propto \lambda^2$. For $\varepsilon\lt 0$ there is a deep minimum at $|\varepsilon|\propto n^2\ll \lambda^2$. The behaviour of $\rho$ below the minimum depends on the sign of $\lambda$. In case of repulsion $\rho$ monotonically grows with $|\varepsilon|$ and saturates for $|\varepsilon| \gg \lambda^2$. In case of attraction $\rho$ has sharp maximum at $|\varepsilon| \propto \lambda^2$. The latter feature is due to resonant scattering by quasistationary bound states that inevitably arise just below the bottom of each subband for any attracting impurity.

A theory for electron-phonon energy exchange in Anderson insulators with long localization length is developed. The major contribution to the cooling power as a function of electron temperature is shown to be directly related to the correlation function of the local density of electron states, which is enhanced near the localization transition by multi-fractality and by the presence of Mott's resonant pairs of states. The theory we develop explains huge enhancement of the cooling power observed in insulating Indium Oxide films as compared to predictions of standard theory for disordered metals

The problem of one-dimensional randomly forced Burgers turbulence is considered in terms of (1+1) directed polymers. In the limit of strong turbulence (which corresponds to the zero temperature limit for the directed polymer system) using the replica technique a general explicit expression for the joint distribution function of two velocities separated by a finite distance is derived. In particular, it is shown that at length scales much smaller than the injection length of the Burgers random force the moments of the velocity increment exhibit typical strong intermittency behavior.
Literature:
J.Stat.Mech., 083302 (2018); arXiv:1804.08294.

Quantum-critical strongly correlated systems feature universal collision-dominated collective transport. Viscous electronics is an emerging field dealing with systems in which strongly interacting electrons flow like a fluid. Such flows have some remarkable properties never seen before. I shall describe recent theoretical and experimental works devoted, in particular, to a striking macroscopic DC transport behavior: viscous friction can drive electric current against an applied field, resulting in a negative resistance, recently measured experimentally in graphene. I shall also describe conductance exceeding the fundamental quantum-ballistic limit, field-theoretical anomalies and other wonders of viscous electronics. Strongly interacting electron-hole plasma in high-mobility graphene affords a unique link between quantum-critical electron transport and the wealth of fluid mechanics phenomena.

The Markov chain Monte Carlo method traditionally consists in exploring large configuration spaces using a reversible random walk where moves are accepted or rejected based on an energy criterion. In this talk, I will present recent progress on irreversible Markov chains that challenge this picture. In one-dimensional particle systems, the new algorithms are related to the TASEP (totally asymmetric simple exclusion model). We can rigorously prove that they mix on much shorter time scales than the reversible Metropolis algorithms.
I will then show how these algorithms sample the Boltzmann distribution (and thus explore configuration space) without computing the energy. In long-range interacting systems, where the computation of the energy is time-consuming, this provides a key advantage for the new method. For locally charge-neutral systems in three dimensions, we obtain a highly efficient algorithm, of N log N complexity in the number N of particles. I discuss the main paradox of this method: How is it possible to sample the Boltzmann distribution without computing the energy, and then review some recent successes as well as prospects and challenges for irreversible Markov chains in statistical physics.
References:
S. C. Kapfer, W. Krauth, Physical Review Letters 119, 240603 (2017)
Z. Lei, W. Krauth, arXiv:1806.06786 (2018)
M. F. Faulkner, L. Qin, A. C. Maggs, W. Krauth, arXiv:1804.05795 (2018)

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, September 28, 2018, Landau Institute, 11:30 amVictor Yakovenko (University of Maryland)Superconductivity that breaks time-reversal symmetry and its experimental manifestations

Since 2006, it has been found experimentally that superconductivity spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry (TRS) in certain materials, such as Sr2RuO4, UPt3, URu2Si2, and Bi/Ni bilayers. In the latter case, we argue that the superconducting order parameter has the winding number of +-2 around the Fermi surface, thus making Bi/Ni bilayers a rare example of intrinsic 2D topological superconductivity [1]. The experimental evidence for TRS breaking comes from the polar Kerr effect, which is rotation of polarization of normally incident light upon reflection from the sample. Theoretical studies indicate that this effect is possible only if a superconductor has more than one band. To clarify these conditions, we study a model of chiral TRS-breaking superconductivity on the honeycomb lattice [2]. We consider superconducting pairing on the neighboring sites belonging to different sublattices. The matrix of this superconducting pairing is non-unitary and does not commute with the normal-state Hamiltonian. We find that the latter condition is necessary for experimental manifestations of the TRS breaking. We show that such superconducting pairing generates persistent loop currents around each lattice site and opens a topological mass gap at the Dirac points with the corresponding chiral edge states, as in Haldane's model of the quantum anomalous Hall effect. We calculate the intrinsic ac Hall conductivity in the absence of an external magnetic field, which determines the polar Kerr effect, and show that it is proportional to the loop-current order parameter.
[1] X. Gong, M. Kargarian, A. Stern, D. Yue, H. Zhou, X. Jin, V. M. Galitski, V. M. Yakovenko, and J. Xia, Science Advances 3, e1602579 (2017), arXiv:1609.08538
[2] P. M. R. Brydon, D. S. L. Abergel, D. F. Agterberg, and V. M. Yakovenko, arXiv:1802.02280

Since 2006, it has been found experimentally that superconductivity spontaneously breaks time-reversal symmetry (TRS) in certain materials, such as Sr2RuO4, UPt3, URu2Si2, and Bi/Ni bilayers. In the latter case, we argue that the superconducting order parameter has the winding number of +-2 around the Fermi surface, thus making Bi/Ni bilayers a rare example of intrinsic 2D topological superconductivity [1]. The experimental evidence for TRS breaking comes from the polar Kerr effect, which is rotation of polarization of normally incident light upon reflection from the sample. Theoretical studies indicate that this effect is possible only if a superconductor has more than one band. To clarify these conditions, we study a model of chiral TRS-breaking superconductivity on the honeycomb lattice [2]. We consider superconducting pairing on the neighboring sites belonging to different sublattices. The matrix of this superconducting pairing is non-unitary and does not commute with the normal-state Hamiltonian. We find that the latter condition is necessary for experimental manifestations of the TRS breaking. We show that such superconducting pairing generates persistent loop currents around each lattice site and opens a topological mass gap at the Dirac points with the corresponding chiral edge states, as in Haldane's model of the quantum anomalous Hall effect. We calculate the intrinsic ac Hall conductivity in the absence of an external magnetic field, which determines the polar Kerr effect, and show that it is proportional to the loop-current order parameter.
References:

Recent experimental progress with ultracold atomic gases has made it possible to investigate in exquisite detail the far out-of-equilibrium many-body quantum dynamics of isolated systems. This dynamics necessarily generates interferences beyond an Ehrenfest time scale, where quantum and classical expectation values diverge. Theoretically speaking, the heavily-relied-upon truncated Wigner approximation leaves out these interferences.

In this talk, I will present a semiclassical theory which bridges classical and quantum concepts in many-body bosonic systems and properly incorporates such missing quantum effects. For mesoscopically populated Bose-Hubbard systems, this theory captures post-Ehrenfest quantum interference phenomena very accurately.

Topological states, such as the quantum Hall state or the quantum spin Hall state, are usually bulk insulators, with helical edge states that may carry current. The edge structure of such two dimensional systems is usually studied with sharp boundary conditions in spite of the fact that the confining potential in physical systems is expected to be smooth. It is shown that such a smooth confining potential may lead to edge reconstruction and formation of additional edge states. This is demonstrated explicitly for the case of integer and fractional quantum Hall systems, explaining several recent experimental puzzles. Moreover, the effect is also manifested in two-dimensional topological insulators (TIs), which are predicted to support helical edge modes that come in counter-propagating pairs, due to the time-reversal symmetry (TRS). The TRS protection of these edge states led to various suggested applications of TIs, ranging from spintronics to quantum computation. Here edge reconstruction leads to spontaneous TRS breaking, a finite Hall resistance at zero magnetic field and possible spin current. Such spontaneous TRS breaking may have important implications on transport properties and possible applications.

Spin liquid phases are insulating states of matter with unique properties. In certain cases the phase hosts edge modes, end modes, and emergent non-abelian quasiparticles. The latter is a key element in several suggestions for topological quantum computation. In this talk, I`ll describe a proposal to construct a platform for creating effective spin models using semiconductor nanowires. The wires are tuned to the topological regime; with Majorana zero modes on each end. We group them into three-wires building blocks called hexons, each containing six Majorana zero modes. In the presence of a strong charging energy, the hexon becomes a Cooper box that is equivalent to two spin-1/2 degrees of freedom. This structure enables a flexible control (using local gates only) of the couplings between the Majorana zero modes. This tuning of the Hamiltonian governing the low energy effective spins, provides us with a path of simulating interacting spin-models in one- and two-dimensions. I will describe several examples including realizations of different phases of 1/2 Heisenberg spin chains, topological spin phases on a two dimensional Fisher lattice and their experimental signature.

The ongoing development of superconducting qubits has brought some basic questions of many-body physics to the research forefront, and in some cases helped solving them. I will address two effects in quantum condensed matter highlighted by the development of a fluxonium qubit. The first one is the so-called cosine-phi problem stemming from the seminal paper of Brian Josephson: the predicted there phase dependence of the dissipative current across a Josephson junction was observed in a fluxonium, after nearly 50 years of unsuccessful attempts by other techniques. The second one is the dynamics of a weakly-pinned charge density wave: we predict that the dynamics may be revealed in measurements of microwave reflection off a superinductor, which is a key element of the fluxonium.

The Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation describes an important universality class of nonequilibrium stochastic growth. There has been a surge of recent interest in the one-point probability distribution P(H,t) of height H of the evolving interface at time t in one dimension. I will show how one can use the optimal fluctuation method (OFM) to evaluate P(H,t) for different initial conditions and in different dimensions.

In one dimension the central part of the short-time height distribution is Gaussian, but the tails are non-Gaussian and strongly asymmetric. One interesting initial condition is an ensemble of Brownian interfaces, where we found a singularity of the large deviation function of the height at a critical value of |H|. This singularity results from a breakdown of mirror symmetry of the optimal path of the system, and it has the character of a second-order phase transition. At d>2 the OFM is valid, in the weak-coupling regime, at all times. Here the long-time height distribution P(H) is time-independent, and we use the OFM to determine the Gaussian body and strongly asymmetric non-Gaussian tails of P(H).

Transport in systems with many particles experiencing frequent mutual collisions (such as gases or liquids) has been studied for more than two centuries and is accurately described by the theory of hydrodynamics. It has been argued theoretically for a long time that the collective behavior of charge carriers in solids can also be treated by the hydrodynamic approach. However, despite many attempts, very little evidence of hydrodynamic electron transport has been found so far.
Graphene encapsulated between hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) offers an ideal platform to study electron hydrodynamics as it hosts an ultra-clean electronic system with the electron-electron mean free path being the shortest lengths scale in the problem. In the first part of my talk we will discuss why electron hydrodynamics has not been observed before and how it manifests itself in electron transport. Furthermore, it will be shown that electrons in graphene can behave as a very viscous fluid (more viscous than honey) forming vortices of applied electron current [1]. In the second part, we will discuss the measurements of the viscosity of an electron fluid by its superballistic flow through graphene point contacts [2]. Then we will talk about the behavior of electron fluids in the presence of magnetic field where I will report the experimental measurements of the Hall viscosity in two dimensions [3]. This dissipationless transport coefficient has been widely discussed in theoretical literature on fluid mechanics, plasma physics and condensed matter physics, yet, until now, any experimental evidence has been lacking, making the phenomenon truly a unicorn. Last but not least, we will discuss how electron hydrodynamics can be used for the development of resonant terahertz photodetectors.

Using a combination of analytic and numerical methods, we study the polarizability of a (non-interacting) Anderson insulator in one, two, and three dimensions and demonstrate that, in a wide range of parameters, it scales proportionally to the square of the localization length, contrary to earlier claims based on the effective-medium approximation. We further analyze the effect of electron-electron interactions on the dielectric constant in quasi-1D, quasi-2D and 3D materials with large localization length, including both Coulomb repulsion and phonon-mediated attraction. The phonon-mediated attraction (in the pseudogapped state on the insulating side of the Superconductor-Insulator Transition) produces a correction to the dielectric constant, which may be detected from a linear response of a dielectric constant to an external magnetic field.

Interactions between the surface and the bulk in a topological insulator (TI) cause a finite quasiparticle lifetime of the topological surface states (TSS) as shown by the recent experiments for Bi2X3 (X=Se,Te). Previously, hexagonally warped topological band has been detected and other anomalies related to warping have been reported. The most remarkable among which is the 6-fold periodic spin canting anomaly (SCA) of the in-plane spin around the spin-1/2 vortex.

This talk is focused on understanding this SCA from an interaction point of view between the TSS and the bulk. We first device a general scheme based on interactions and the spin-off-diagonal component of the self energy. It is shown that, the spin-off diagonal interaction channel is topology preserving. Then the effective interaction strength, strong spin-orbit coupling and the Fermi surface warping is shown to cooperate in giving rise to the periodic spin canting anomaly. Our result points at the presence of the topology friendly interaction channels in strong TIs.

We develop the theory of transverse magnetoresistance in layered quasi-two-dimensional metals. Using the Kubo formula and harmonic expansion we calculate intralayer conductivity in a magnetic field perpendicular to conducting layers. The analytical expressions for the amplitudes and phases of magnetic quantum oscillations (MQO) and of the so-called slow oscillations (SlO) are derived and applied to analyze their behavior as a function of several parameters: magnetic field strength, interlayer transfer integral and the Landau-level width. Both the MQO and SlO of intralayer and interlayer conductivity have approximately opposite phase in weak magnetic field and the same phase in strong field. The amplitude of SlO of intralayer conductivity changes sign at $\omega_c\tau\approx\sqrt{3}$. There are several other qualitative differences between magnetic oscillations of in-plane and out-of-plane conductivity. The results obtained are useful to analyze experimental data on magnetoresistance oscillations in various strongly anisotropic quasi-2D metals.

I will review the concept of non-equilibrium phase transitions in rare events statistics as well as a recent dramatic progress in studies of 1D KPZ. The focus of my talk is on the reflection symmetry breaking phase transition recently found stationary KPZ
problem: https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.08738

The weak Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in chiral cubic magnets like MnSi, FeGe or Cu2OSeO3 twists the magnetization on long length scales resulting in spatially periodic magnetic textures — magnetic crystals. There exist especially magnetic crystals with a one- and two-dimensional periodicity corresponding to the magnetic helix and the topologically non-trivial skyrmion lattice, respectively. In this talk, we provide an overview of their properties. In particular, we discuss the crystallization process of these magnetic crystals that is characterized by strongly correlated chiral paramagnons that drive the transition first-order [1,2]. This fluctuation-induced first-order transition is well described by a theory put forward by Brazovskii. We will introduce the magnon band structure and their non-reciprocal properties in the presence of a magnetic field [3,4]. For the skyrmion lattice, this band structure is topological and characterized by finite Chern numbers that can be attributed to the formation of magnon Landau levels due to an emergent orbital magnetic field [5,6,7]. Finally, we will discuss domain walls of helimagnets that share similarities with grain boundaries consisting of disclination and dislocation defects of the helimagnetic order [8].

The transport of excitations between pinned particles in many physical systems may be mapped to single-particle models with power-law hopping, 1/rα. For randomly spaced particles, these models present an effective peculiar disorder that leads to surprising localization properties. We show that in one-dimensional systems almost all eigenstates (except for a few states close to the ground state) are power-law localized for any value of α > 0. Moreover, we show that our model is an example of a new universality class of models with power-law hopping, characterized by a duality between systems with long-range hops (α < 1) and short-range hops (α > 1), in which the wave function amplitude falls off algebraically with the same power γ from the localization center.

Here we present the first quantum simulator for an impurity scattering in interacting 1D wires. The simulator consists of a transmission line made out of more than 30,000 Josephson junctions serving as a high-impedance media for microwave photons and a small phase slip Josephson junction playing the role of a back-scattering impurity. The system can be described by a boundary sine-Gordon model where the interaction strength is defined as g = Z/Rq with Z being the transmission line impedance and Rq = 6.5 kOhm the resistance quantum. By measuring scattering amplitudes and a spectrum of inelastically scattered microwave photons we can find the first and higher order correlation functions related to an AC conductance of the impurity. The controllability of the transmission line parameters and the finite size of the system allow us to fabricate lines with impedances exceeding Rq while keeping the phase slip rate of the line’s junctions very low. It gives us the unique opportunity to test Luttinger liquid physics at both sides of the critical point g = 1. A similar experimental setup can be used to simulate a Kondo impurity.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, January 19, 2018, Landau Institute, 11:30 amI.S. BurmistrovMesoscopic Stoner instability: Suppression by tunneling to a reservoir

We derive the generalized Ambegaokar-Eckern-Schon action which governs the dynamics of the charge and spin degrees of freedom for the quantum dot described by the universal Hamiltonian and tunnel coupled to a reservoir. Contrary to previous works, we derive this dissipative action without the following assumptions (i) the absolute value of the spin is not aected by the tunneling coupling to a reservoir and (ii) the spin rotates slowly such that the adiabatic approximation holds. We use the derived dissipative action for analysis of stability of the mesoscopic Stoner phenomenon with respect to the electron tunneling to a reservoir. We nd that at nite temperature the electron tunneling suppresses the mesoscopic Stoner instability at tunneling conductance which depends on
temperature. At zero temperature we predict the existence of the quantum phase transition between the mesoscopic Stoner phase and the paramagnetic phase.

We consider the effects of electron scattering on a quantum magnetic impurity on the current-voltage characteristics of the helical edge of a two-dimensional topological insulator. We compute the backscattering contribution to the current along the edge for a general form of the exchange interaction matrix and arbitrary value of the magnetic impurity spin. We find that the differential conductance might be a non-monotonous function of the voltage with several extrema. Effects of magnetic anisotropy for the impurity are considered.

We consider ballistic SQUIDs with spin filtering inside half-metallic ferromagnetic arms.
A singlet Cooper pair cannot pass through an arm in this case, so the Josephson current is entirely due to the Cooper pair splitting, with two electrons going to different interferometer arms. In order to elucidate the mechanisms of Josephson transport due to split Cooper pairs, we assume the arms to be single-channel wires in the short-junction limit.
Different geometries of the system (determined by the length of the arms and the phases acquired by quasiparticles during splitting between the arms) lead to qualitatively different behavior of the SQUID characteristics (the Andreev levels, the current-phase relation, and the critical Josephson current) as a function of two control parameters, the external magnetic flux and misorientation of the two spin filters. The current-phase relation can change its amplitude and shape, in particular, turning to a pi-junction form or acquiring additional zero crossings. The critical current can become a nonmonotonic function of the misorientation of the spin filters and the magnetic flux (on half of period). Periodicity with respect to the magnetic flux is doubled, in comparison to conventional SQUIDs.

We calculate Aslamazov-Larkin paraconductity for a model of strongly disordered superconductors (dimensions d=2,3) with a large pseudogap whose magnitude strongly exceeds transition temperature Tc. We show that, within Gaussian approximation over Cooper-pair fluctuations, paraconductivity is just twice larger that the classical AL result at the same ε = (T-Tc)/Tc. Upon decreasing ε, Gaussian approximation is violated due to local fluctuations of pairing fields that become relevant at ε < ε1 « 1. Characteristic scale ε1 is much larger than the width ε2 of the thermodynamical critical region, that is determined via the Ginzburg criterion, ε2 ≈ ε1d. We argue that in the intermediate region ε2 < ε < ε1 paraconductivity follows the same AL power law, albeit with another (yet unknown) numerical prefactor. At further decrease of the temperature, all kinds of fluctuational corrections become strong at ε < ε2; in particular, conductivity occurs to be strongly inhomogenuous in real space.

We consider a one-dimensional single channel quantum wire with a spin gap but gapless charge excitations. We show that the spin gap can be generated in two different ways, one of which has non-trivial topological properties. This topology manifests itself in two ways - firstly in the existence of gapless single-particle edge states, and secondly in an insensitivity of the wire to weak impurities reminiscent of the helical edge states of two dimensional topological insulators. We will demonstrate a number of ways such a phase of matter can be engineered, including spin-orbit quantum wires or two coupled helical edge states. If time permits, we will also touch on recent work concerning strong impurities in such systems.

Electric and thermal transport properties of a ν=2/3 fractional quantum
Hall junction are analyzed. We investigate the evolution of the electric
and thermal two-terminal conductances, G and G_Q, with system size L and
temperature T. This is done both for the case of strong interaction
between the 1 and 1/3 modes (when the low-temperature physics of the
interacting segment of the device is controlled by the vicinity of the
strong-disorder Kane-Fisher-Polchinski fixed point) and for relatively
weak interaction, for which the disorder is irrelevant at T=0 in the
renormalization-group sense. The transport properties in both cases are
similar in several respects. In particular, G(L) is close to 4/3 (in units
of e2/h) and G_Q to 2 (in units of πT/6?) for small L, independently of
the interaction strength. For large L the system is in an incoherent
regime, with G given by 2/3 and GQ showing the Ohmic scaling, G_Q\sim 1/L,
again for any interaction strength. The hallmark of the strong-disorder
fixed point is the emergence of an intermediate range of L, in which the
electric conductance shows strong mesoscopic fluctuations and the thermal
conductance is G_Q=1. The analysis is extended also to a device with
floating 1/3 mode, as studied in a recent experiment [A. Grivnin et al,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 266803 (2014)].

Recent measurements of the conductivity of nanoperforated graphene are interpreted in terms of edges states existing near the edge of each nanohole. The perimetric quantization of edge states should result in the formation of a quasi-equidistant ladder of quasistationary energy levels. Dirac fermions filling this ladder rotate about each nanohole in the direction determined by the valley index. We show that the irradiation of this system by circularly polarized terahertz radiation leads to a resonance in absorption in one of the valleys. The magnitude of absorption at the resonance frequency can be controlled by means of gate voltage.

Generic states of non-interacting electrons in disordered wires are localized, and the DC conductivity of a wire vanishes at zero temperature. However, the AC conductivity is non-vanishing, and its general asymptotic form at low frequency was obtained by Mott who used intuitive qualitative arguments. Then this formula was rigorously derived by Berezinsky for a strictly one-dimensional (1D) disordered system. Later Hayn and John have re-derived the Mott-Berezinsky formula applying instanton techniques to localized states in the Lifshits tails (at large negative energies). We revisit the instanton approach and apply it to the statistics of wave functions and AC transport, calculating exactly the integral over gaussian fluctuations around the exact two-instanton solution. We demonstrate that quite generically the contribution of zero modes to the fluctuation determinant exactly cancels the Jacobian that appears when the collective variable are introduced. Thus, we derive the correlations between eigenfunctions at different energies beyond the leading order in small energy difference. This allows us to calculate the leading corrections to the Mott-Berezinsky law. We also extend this approach to quasi-1D wires.

Formation of unusual textures of polarization is imminent for nano-scale ferroelectric samples, films, rods, and granules, where the depolarization surface effects play the crucial role. We consider the unconventional topological polarization textures in several nano-scale systems, in which they were either already directly observed or can be yet discovered. Polarization domains that alternate the surface charge distribution, first proposed by Landau (1935) in contents of ferromagnetism can be formed in ferroelectric thin films as an effective mechanism to confine the depolarization field to the near-surface layer and diminish the depolarization energy. Very recently we have demonstrated that the few-nanometer thick ferroelectric/paraelectric superlattices with periodic domain structures exhibit the striking feature. The effective capacitance of ferroelectric layers is negative. This effect is explained by the opposite orientation of the depolarizing field with respect to the field-induced averaged polarization. Moreover, in sub-THz region the real part of the dielectric constant becomes positive, passing through zero at frequency ~0.3-3THz, inducing the resonance effect, suitable for the design of the ultra-small low-energy THz chips. Multi-vortex and skyrmion states are formed inside ferroelectric cylindrical nano-dots and nanorods to reduce the depolarization energy. We study the stability of such states and calculate the phase diagram of the system. We demonstrate that the topological class of the most stable topological excitations can be driven by the geometrical and electrical parameters of the system, external field, and temperature. We target the multi-domain and topological excitations in FE nanodots as a platform for multivalued logic units, for neuromorphic computing.

Strongly interacting electrons can move in a neatly coordinated way, reminiscent of the movement of viscous fluids. In viscous electron flows interactions give rise to a collective behavior, facilitating transport and allowing conductance to exceed the fundamental Sharvin-Landauer ballistic limit Gball. This talk will describe a theory of the ballistic-to-viscous crossover in a constriction exhibiting the ballistic transport at T = 0 but governed by electron hydrodynamics at elevated temperatures. An approach based on quasi-hydrodynamic variables predicts an additive relation G = Gball + Gvis, where the viscous contribution Gvis dominates over Gball in the hydrodynamic limit. We will also discuss recent measurements of electron transport through graphene constrictions, finding that conductance below 150 K increases with increasing temperature. The measurements help to identify the conductance contribution arising due to electron viscosity and determine its temperature dependence. Besides fundamental interest, this work shows that viscous effects can facilitate high-mobility transport at elevated temperatures, a potentially useful behavior for designing graphene-based devices.

When different materials are interfaced/jointed with each other, the resulted hybrid systems often manifest fascinating physical properties that do not exist in nature. Among the many artificial hybrids (sometimes addressed as meta-materials or hetero-structures), nano-hybrid made with low-dimensional materials and other functional materials is attracting tremendous attentions in recent years. In this talk, we will mainly go through a couple of examples of our recent progresses on the graphene/superconducting-islands, and the 2D materials/h-Boron-Nitride nano-hybrid systems. In the former, the superconducting behavior is successfully coupled to the gate-tunable feature of graphene, leading to a metal-superconducting quantum phase transition at the ground state. While in the later, ultra-flat and ultra-clean interface allow ballistic electronic transport, opening new path to realize the paradigm of electron optics. Our recent experimental progresses on MoS2/h-BN hetero-structures will also be discussed. We expect that artificial nano-hybrids and their quantum properties can be expanded into many research areas that are important for both fundamental studies and future applications.

The impact of the nonanalytic reconstruction of vortex cores on static vortex structures inweakly coupled superfluids is considered. It is shown that, in rotating two-dimensional systems, the Abrikosov vortex lattice is unstable to vortex core deformation: Each zero of the wave function becomes a cut of finite length. The directors characterizing the orientations of the cuts are themselves ordered in superstructures due either to surface effects or to interaction with shear deformations of the lattice (spiral structure). Similar instability may also be observable in clean superconducting films.

We study exciton radiative decay in a two-dimensional material, taking into account large thermal population in the nonradiative states, from which excitons are scattered into the radiative states by acoustic phonons. We find an analytical solution of the kinetic equation for the nonequilibrium distribution function of excitons in the radiative states. Our estimates for bright excitons in transition-metal dichalcogenides indicate a strong depletion of radiative state population due to insufficient exciton-phonon scattering rate at low temperatures.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, February 10, 2017, Landau Institute, 11:30 amI.S BurmistrovEntanglement entropy and particle number cumulants of disordered fermions

We study the entanglement entropy and particle number cumulants for a system of disordered noninteracting fermions in d dimensions. We show, both analytically and numerically, that for a weak disorder the entanglement entropy and the second cumulant (particle number variance) are proportional to each other with a universal coefficient. The corresponding expressions are analogous to those in the clean case but with a logarithmic factor regularized by the mean free path rather than by the system size. We also determine the scaling of higher cumulants by analytical (weak disorder) and numerical means. Finally, we predict that the particle number variance and the entanglement entropy are nonanalytic functions of disorder at the Anderson transition.

We formulate general criteria for localized, extended ergodic and extended non-ergodic (multifractal) phases in disordered quantum systems and apply these criteria to the problem of Anderson localization on Bethe lattice, random regular graphs and generalized Rosenzweig-Porter random matrix ensemble. We focus on the replica symmetry breaking approach to the problem and show how this approach provides a natural classification of phases and phase transitions.

We investigate the interplay of ferroelectricity and quantum electron transport at the nanoscale in the regime of Coulomb blockade. Ferroelectric polarization in this case is no longer the external parameter but should be self-consistently calculated along with electron hopping probabilities leading to new physical transport phenomena.

We study the temperature dependence of the electrical conductance of a clean strongly interacting quantum wire in the presence of a helical nuclear spin order. The nuclear spin helix opens a temperature-dependent partial gap in the electron spectrum. Using a bosonization framework we describe the gapped electron modes by sine-Gordon-like kinks. We predict an internal resistivity caused by an Ohmic-like friction these kinks experience via interacting with gapless excitations. As a result, the conductance rises from G=e^2/h at temperatures below the critical temperature when nuclear spins are fully polarized to G=2e^2/h at higher temperatures when the order is destroyed, featuring a relatively wide plateau in the intermediate regime. The theoretical results are compared with the experimental data for GaAs quantum wires obtained recently by Scheller et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 066801 (2014)].
(arXiv:1611.10238)

Results of detailed study of the topological insulator Bi2Se3 surface state energy structure in the vicinity of surface steps by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS) methods are described. Increase of the chemical potential in the vicinity of the step edge is observed. The value of the increase is found to correlate with the step height and is caused by redistribution of electron wave functions between outer and inner edges of surface steps, as it is known for usual metals, as well as by presence of dangling bonds on the step. Smaller value of the shift and its larger characteristic length reflect specifics of the helical surface states. This increase is accompanied by enhancement of the relative value of the differential tunneling conductance, dI/dV, at the Dirac point and thereby produces an illusion of appearance of edge states. We show that the enhancement is reproduced in the framework of the tunneling model, which takes into account the dependence of the tunneling gap transparency on the voltage.
References:
[1] N.I. Fedotov, S.V. Zaitsev-Zotov, JETP Letters, 104, #11 (2016) (in press); arXiv:1609.08294.
[2] N.I. Fedotov, S.V. Zaitsev-Zotov, arXiv:1609.08911.

Manipulating small spin textures that can serve as bits of information by electric and spin currents is one of the main challenges in the field of spintronics. Ferromagnetic skyrmions recently attracted a lot of attention because they are small in size and are better than domain walls at avoiding pinning sites while moved by electric current. Nevertheless, ferromagnetic skyrmions also have certain disadvantages, such as the presence of stray fields and transverse dynamics, making them harder to employ in spintronic devices. To avoid these unwanted effects, we propose a novel topological object: the antiferromagnetic (AFM) skyrmion and explore its properties using analytical theory based on generalized Thiele equation and micromagnetic simulations. This topological texture has no stray fields and we show that its dynamics are faster compared to its ferromagnetic analogue. We obtain the range of stability and the dependence of AFM skyrmion radius on the strength of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction coming from relativistic spin-orbit effects. Moreover, we study the temperature effects on the stability and mobility of AFM skyrmions. We find that the thermal properties, e.g. such as the antiferromagnetic skyrmion radius and diffusion constant, are rather different from those for ferromagnetic skyrmions. More importantly, we show that due to unusual topology the AFM skyrmions do not have a velocity component transverse to the current (no topological Hall effect), and thus may be interesting candidates for spintronic memory and logic applications.

We develop the two-instanton approximation to the current-voltage characteristic of a single electron transistor within the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Sch\"on model. We determine the temperature and gate voltage dependence of the Coulomb blockade oscillations of the conductance and the effective charge. We find that a small (in comparison with the charging energy) bias voltage leads to significant suppression of the Coulomb blockade oscillations and to appearance of the bias-dependent phase shift.

Using the two-loop analysis and the background field method we demonstrate that the local pure scaling operators without derivatives in the Finkel'stein nonlinear sigma model can be constructed by straightforward generalization of the corresponding operators for the noninteracting case. These pure scaling operators demonstrate multifractal behavior and describe mesoscopic fluctuations of the single-particle Green's function. We determine anomalous dimensions of all such pure scaling operators in the interacting theory within the two-loop approximation.

It has recently been realized that driven-dissipative dynamics, which usually tends to destroy subtle quantum interference and correlation effects, could actually be used as a resource. By proper engineering of the reservoirs and their couplings, one may drive a system towards a desired quantum-correlated steady state, even in the absence of internal Hamiltonian dynamics.
An intriguing class of quantum phases is characterized by topology, including the quantum Hall effect and topological insulators and superconductors. Which of these noninteracting topological states can be achieved as the result of purely dissipative Lindblad-type dynamics? Recent studies have only provided partial answers to this question.
In this talk, I will present a general recipe for the creation, classification, and detection of states of the integer quantum Hall and 2D topological insulator type as the outcomes of coupling a system to reservoirs, and show how the recipe can be realized with ultracold atoms and other quantum simulators. The mixed states so created can be made arbitrarily close to pure states, and the construction may be generalized to other topological phases.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, September 16, 2016, Landau Institute, 11:30 amYuval Gefen (Weizmann Institute of Science)Physics at the Edge: A New Paradigm for Shot Noise

Questions on the nature of edge reconstruction and ‘where does the current flow’ in the quantum Hall effect (QHE) have been debated for years. Moreover, the recent observation of proliferation of ‘upstream’ neutral modes in the fractional QHE raised doubts about the present models of edge channels. I will focus on the hole-conjugate state \nu=2/3 , and present a new picture of edge reconstruction. For example, while the hitherto accepted model for \nu=2/3 consists of a single downstream charge channel with conductance 2/3 and an upstream neutral mode, it has been recently predicted theoretically and found experimentally that the current is carried by two separate downstream edge channels, each with conductance 1/3 accompanied by upstream neutral mode(s). We find that if the two downstream channels are not equilibrated, inter-mode equilibration (via particle exchange) is accompanied by an excitation of upstream neutral modes. In turn, the counter-propagating neutral modes, moving in close proximity to the charge modes, fragment into propagating charges, inducing thus downstream current fluctuations with zero net current – a novel mechanism for non-equilibrium noise. The latter is shot noise with quantized Fano factors, which does not involve beam partitioning.

Weyl semimetals are recently discovered materials in which the valence and conduction bands touch at isolated points (Weyl nodes) in the Brillouin zone. This gives rise to unusual electronic properties of these materials. In particular, Weyl semimetals host peculiar surface electron states whose Fermi lines are shaped as open arcs. I will show that static electric fields that are necessarily present near the crystal surface result in a spiraling structure of Fermi arcs. The winding angle of the spiral is controlled by the chirality of the Weyl node and the magnitude of the surface potential. I will also discuss magnetoresistance of a pn-junction in a Weyl semimetal.

While phonons are routinely used to describe low-energy properties of
quantum superfluids, repulsive bosons in one dimension are special:
their low energy excitations allow for an alternative decription in
terms of fermionic quasiparticles. In my talk I will present the
quasiclassical theory of these excitations which allows calculation of
the dynamical structure factor in a generic 1D Bose liquid. In this
theory the main role is played by singular kink-like configurations of
the bosonic field. I will demonstrate that it is the kinetics of these
quasiparticles rather than hydrodynamics which provides an effective
description of dynamics of 1D interacting bosons.

Amorphous materials as diverse as foams, emulsions, colloidal suspensions and granular media can jam into a solid-like disordered state. In this state each particle has a certain equilibrium position and can vibrate around it.

In this talk, I will show that the dynamical matrix M describing harmonic oscillations in such media can be represented in the form M = AAT. The rows of the matrix A correspond to the degrees of freedom of individual granules and its columns correspond to elastic contacts between granules. This representation allows to apply the random matrix theory and estimate the vibrational density of states. The resulting vibrational density of states is approximately constant over a wide frequency range which is determined mostly by the ratio of the number of degrees of freedom and the total number of elastic contacts in the system. The results are in a good agreement with numerical experiments performed by various authors.

Department of quantum mesoscopics: seminar, Friday, June 3, 2016, ITF, 2:30 pmA. V. Semenov (MGPU)Coherent excited states in superconductors due to a microwave field

We describe theoretically the depairing effect of a microwave field on diffusive s-wave superconductors. The ground state of the superconductor is altered qualitatively in analogy to the depairing due to a dc current. In contrast to dc-depairing the density of states acquires, for microwaves with frequency \omega_0, steps at multiples of the photon energy \Delta \pm n\hbar\omega_0 and shows an exponential-like tail in the subgap regime. We show that this ac-depairing explains the measured frequency shift of a superconducting resonator at high microwave power and low temperatures.

We study the generation of Majorana fermions in a two-dimensional topological superconductor placed in a transverse magnetic field B. A topological insulator/superconductor heterostructure and a two-dimensional p-wave superconductor are discussed. It is demonstrated that in these systems a single vortex creates two Majorana fermions, one hosted at the vortex core. The wave function of the second Majorana state is localized in the superconductor volume along a circle of radius r∗∝B−1 centered at the vortex core. In the case of many vortices, the sensitivity of r∗ to the magnetic field B may be used to control the coupling between the Majorana fermions. The latter property could be an asset for quantum computations.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, April 22, 2016, Landau Institute, 11:30 amTeun Klapwijk (TU Delft)Josephson-effect in 3DTI and 2DTI based on HgCdTe heterostructures

I will report on experimental results obtained at Molenkamp’s group in Würzburg on ‘missing odd’ Shapiro steps and on emission of Josephson radiation. It is known that as a consequence of the Josephson equations, a strong relation exists between the voltage V measured across a Josephson junction and the characteristic frequency fJ =2eV/h of the current flowing in it. By applying microwave radiation steps occur at integer values of the voltage. Alternatively, ’listening’ to the rf signal radiated by the circulating supercurrent is a passive way of probing its properties. The data provide compelling evidence for the presence of a substantial 4\pi Josephson-current as would be expected from zero-enegry states. The results are available on the arxiv at: arXiv:1603.09611, arXiv:1601.08055, arXiv:1503.05591

Work done by: J.Wiedenmann, E.Bocquillon, R. Deacon, T.M.Klapwijk and various co-authors.
The research is supported by a 2014 Alexander von Humboldt prize.

Traditional simulated annealing uses thermal fluctuations
for convergence in optimization problems. Quantum tunneling provides
a different mechanism for moving between states, with the potential
for reduced time scales and different outcomes. Thermal and quan-
tum annealing are compared in two concentration regimes of a model
disordered magnet, where the effects of quantum mechanics can be
tuned both by varying an applied magnetic field and by controlling the
strength of thermal coupling between the magnet and an external heat
bath. The results indicate that quantum annealing hastens convergence
to the final state, and that the quantum character of the final state can
be engineered thermodynamically.

Quantum annealing (QA) has been proposed as a quantum enhanced optimization heuristic exploiting tunneling. Here, we demonstrate how finite range tunneling can provide considerable computational advantage. For a crafted problem designed to have tall and narrow energy barriers separating local minima, the D-Wave 2X quantum annealer achieves significant runtime advantages relative to Simulated Annealing (SA). For instances with 945 variables, this results in a time-to-99%-success-probability that is ∼108 times faster than SA running on a single processor core. We also compared physical QA with Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC), an algorithm that emulates quantum tunneling on classical processors. We observe a substantial constant overhead against physical QA: D-Wave 2X again runs up to ∼108 times faster than an optimized implementation of QMC on a single core. We note that there exist heuristic classical algorithms that can solve most instances of Chimera structured problems in a timescale comparable to the D-Wave 2X. However, we believe that such solvers will become ineffective for the next generation of annealers currently being designed. To investigate whether finite range tunneling will also confer an advantage for problems of practical interest, we conduct numerical studies on binary optimization problems that cannot yet be represented on quantum hardware. For random instances of the number partitioning problem, we find numerically that QMC, as well as other algorithms designed to simulate QA, scale better than SA. We discuss the implications of these findings for the design of next generation quantum annealers.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, April 8, 2016, Landau Institute, 11:30 amDmitry Bagrets (Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne, Germany)Low-energy field theory of disordered Weyl metals.

In my talk I discuss the transport properties of disordered Weyl semimetals. In these systems, mechanisms of topological origin lead to the protection against Anderson localization, and at the same time to different types of transverse electromagnetic response -- the anomalous Hall effect (AQHE), and chiral magnetic effect (CME). I will demonstrate how an interplay of symmetry breaking and the chiral anomaly leads to the low-energy field theory containing two types of topological terms --- the Pruisken term describing AQHE and a variant of the non-Abelian Chern-Simons term responsible for CME. I will then discuss the signatures of CME in the magnetoconductance and shot noise assuming a quasi-one-dimensional geometry with a disordered Weyl semimetal nanowire being placed in the contact with two normal leads. An application of the magnetic field B along the nanowire creates the chiral 1d channels propagating parallel to B. They survive disorder averaging and the amount of them equals to the number of flux quanta piercing the nanowire. As the result, the magnetoconductance shows the crossover from quadratic to linear in B behavior while the Fano factor F is exponentially suppressed at high B as compared to F=1/3 at low B.
References: Dmitry Bagrets and Alexander Altland, PRL 114, 257201 (2015); PRB 93, 075113 (2016)

Superconducting quantum bits (qubits) are at the heart of quantum information processing schemes since they satisfy the requirements for being the building blocks of viable quantum computers. Here it is shown that quantum coherence, in the form of population inversion pulses, is induced by self-induced transparent pulses propagating in a quantum metamaterial comprising superconducting charge qubits. The experimental conﬁrmation of that effect may open a new pathway to potentially powerful quantum computing.

Out-of-time-order correlators introduced recently in the context of quantum gravity describe the delocalization of information in quantum systems.
In classical chaotic systems, these correlators are known to grow exponentially with the Lyupanov exponent. I discuss the behavior of these correlators in canonical examples of solid state quantum chaotic systems: disordered electrons with and without phonon interaction.

We explore a long Josephson contact transporting Cooper pairs between 1D charge-neutral chiral Majorana modes in the leads via charged Dirac chiral modes in the normal region. We investigate the regimes of transparent and tunnel junctions implemented in 3D topological insulator/superconductor/magnet hybrid structures. The setup acts as a SQUID controlled by the magnetic flux enclosed by the chiral loop of the normal region. This chirality leads to the fractional h/e-periodic pattern of critical current. The current-phase relation can have sawtooth-like shape with spikes at unusual even phases of 2\pi n.

Dynamical phase transitions can occur in isolated quantum systems that are brought out of equilibrium by either a sudden or a gradual change of their parameters. Theoretical examples rage from the behaviour of the O(N) model in the large N limit as well as spin-model with long range interactions, both showing dynamical criticality in their prethermal steady-states. In this talk I will start by discussing the characterization of such dynamical phase transitions based on the statistics of produced excitations. I will focus both on the role of fluctuations as well as on the difference between sudden and gradual changes of the parameters. Finally, I will discuss a second type type of dynamical criticality discussed in the literature, related to the emergence of zeroes in the Loschmidt amplitude, and show that this phenomenon is much less generic and robust than standard dynamical criticality.

Controlled transformations of electronic states or even of whole phases are achievable today by impacts of very strong electric fields and/or the ultrafast optical pumping. The experimental success is coming from ferroelectrically and ionically enhanced field effect in high-Tc superconductors, induced metallization in oxides of transition metals and in organic materials, field-effect superconductivity in MBE monolayers. The techniques of the femto-second optical pumping span from the purely optical setups to the newer time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and to the latest time-sliced diffraction. The tested electronic phases include: superconductivity, charge density waves, charge ordering, ferroelectricity, magnetic phases, Peierls and Mott insulators. A super goal is to attend “hidden” states which are inaccessible and even unknown under equilibrium conditions. Such a bistable switching has been achieved in a “polaronic Wigner-crystalline Mott insulator” 1T-TaS2. After the experimental review, some time will be devoted to a phenomenological theory (collaboration with N. Kirova). Thus, the modeling of the quasi-condensate of excitons interacting with the order parameter recovers the dynamical realization of the “excitonic insulator” state and spacio-temporal patterns with self-focusing, domains segregation, and local dynamical phase transitions.

This talk will be devoted to conducting systems with unhindered polar deformations: ferroelectric semiconductors near the critical temperature and charge density waves (CDW) subjected to pinning and junctions constraint. For ferroelectrics, epitomized by Mott insulators in organic stack materials, we shall find access to the critical dynamics, to the creep of domain walls, and to the polarization dumping by solitons. For CDWs, we shall model the reconstruction of their current carrying states in junctions channels via dynamical and static vortex structures. For completeness, we shall recall also old stories of frequency and temperature dependence of the permittivity of CDWs under pinning and Coulomb interactions.
The presented results are based on collaborations with P. Monceau and F. Nad in experiment and with N. Kirova and A. Larkin in theory.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, January 22, 2016, Landau Institute, 11:30 amYu.N. Ovchinnikov, I.M. SigalInstability of threeangular Abrikosov lattice at the Ginzburg-Landau parameter value κ, close to one

We study Josephson junctions between superconductors connected by two parallel
ferromagnetic arms. For fully polarised ferromagnets, supercurrent through such a SQUID
only flows via Cooper pair splitting between the differently polarised arms. The average current is suppressed, but mesoscopic fluctuations lead to a significant typical current. We calculate this current for the SFS SQUID, as well as for a SQUID with metallic arms with magnetic impurities. The latter shows an h/e periodicity in flux. The current in both systems is of fluctuational origin and is stronger for materials with low conductivity and a low superconducting gap.

Anomalous Hall effect arises in systems with both spin-orbit coupling and magnetization. Generally, there are three mechanisms contributing to anomalous Hall conductivity: intrinsic, side jump, and skew scattering. The standard diagrammatic approach to the anomalous Hall effect is limited to computation of ladder diagrams. We demonstrate that this approach is insufficient. An important additional contribution comes from diagrams with a single pair of intersecting disorder lines. This contribution constitutes an inherent part of skew scattering on pairs of closely located defects and essentially modifies previously obtained results for anomalous Hall conductivity. We argue that this statement is general and applies to all models of anomalous Hall effect. We illustrate it by an explicit calculation for two-dimensional massive Dirac fermions with weak disorder. In this case, inclusion of the diagrams with crossed impurity lines reverses the sign of the skew scattering term and strongly suppresses the total Hall conductivity at high electron concentrations. The same mechanism for ordiary electrons with spin-orbit coupling (Bychkov-Rashba model) produces an opposite effect increasing the Hall conductivity. In the conduction band, skew scattering with crossed impurity lines is the only source of the anomalous Hall effect.

We review a progress in experiments and theory, elucidating the role of microscopic solitons in quasi-1D electronic systems with a symmetry breaking. The new interest rises from studies of the «electronic ferroelectricity» in organic conductors, and from nano-scale tunneling experiments in Charge Density Wave (CDW) materials. Individual solitons have been visually captured in recent STM experiments. On this basis we extrapolate to a picture of combined topological excitations in general strongly correlated systems: from doped antiferromagnets to strong coupling and spin-polarized superconductors. At more macroscopic scales, we recover the electronic vortices generated in mesa-junctions, and domain walls evolving in femtosecond pump-probe experiments.

09 December 2015 the seminar "Coherent and self-organization phenomena in metamaterials" will take place in NUST «MISIS» (auditorium G-410, Leninsky pr., 6, The Mining College building, Metro station: Oktyabr`skaya kol`tsevaya)

I shall report on several studies of phase transformations in cooperative electronic systems achieved by means of a femto-second optical pumping.
1. Experiments on charge density waves recovered coherent unharmonic undulations of the order parameter, critical slowing down of the collective mode, and evolution of the particle-hole gap. The numerical modeling reproduced the dynamical phase transition, and the waves emitted by “earthquakes” from in depth annihilation events of topological defects.*)
2. The bistable switching to a “hidden” state has been achieved in a “polaronic Wigner-crystalline Mott insulator” 1T-TaS2. The theory focuses upon evolution of electrons and holes as mobile charge carriers, and the crystallized electrons modifiable by intrinsic defects.*)
3. The special case of resonance optical pumping to excitons is realized in systems with a neutral-ionic ferroelectric transition. The modeling of the quantum-coherent quasi-condensate of excitons interacting with the order parameter recovers the dynamical realization of the “excitonic insulator” state and spacio-temporal patterns with self-focusing, domains segregation, and local dynamical phase transitions.**)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*)After collaboration with D. Mihailovic group at the Jozef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
**) After collaboration with N. Kirova, LPS, University Paris-Sud, Orsay, France.

Superconductivity is a phenomenon where the macroscopic quantum coherence appears due to the pairing of electrons. The symmetry properties of the pairing, i.e., the parity and spin-singlet/spin-triplet, determine the physical properties of the superconducting state. Odd-frequency pairing originally discussed by Berezinskii as a bulk state. Although the bulk odd-frequency superconductor has not discovered experimentally, the importance of odd-frequency pairing amplitude has been recognized in ferromagnet / superconductor junctions and non-uniform systems. We have clarified that odd-frequency pair amplitude arises in the spatially non-uniform situation quite ubiquitously where bulk superconductor has a conventional even-frequency symmetry. Especially, it has been revealed that when the Andreev bound state (ABS) appears at the surface/interface of the sample, odd-frequency pairing is enhanced. It has been revealed that there are many exotic properties relevant to odd-frequency pairing like anomalous proximity effect in spin-triplet superconductor junctions. This anomalous proximity effect becomes prominent if we consider disordered normal (N) nano wire attached to a topologically nontrivial superconducting (S) one. The transport properties in superconducting nano-wire junctions show universal behaviors irrespective of the degree of disorder: the quantized zero-bias differential conductance at in NS junctions. The odd-frequency pairs exist wherever the Majorana fermions stay. We further discuss a strong relationship between Majorana fermions and odd-frequency Cooper pairs in several topological superconducting systems.

We study the low frequency admittance of a small metallic island coupled to a gate electrode and to a massive reservoir via a multi channel tunnel junction. The ac current is caused by a slowly oscillating gate voltage. We focus on the regime of inelastic cotunneling in which the dissipation of energy (the real part of the admittance) is determined by two-electron tunneling with creation of electron-hole pairs on the island. We demonstrate that at finite temperatures but low frequencies the energy dissipation is ohmic whereas at zero temperature it is super-ohmic. We find that (i) the charge relaxation resistance (extracted from the real part of the admittance) is strongly temperature dependent, (ii) the imaginary and real parts of the admittance do not satisfy the Korringa-Shiba relation. At zero temperature the charge relaxation resistance vanishes in agreement with the recent zero temperature analysis [M. Filippone and C. Mora, Phys. Rev. B86, 125311 (2012) and P. Dutt, T. L. Schmidt, C. Mora, and K. Le Hur, Phys. Rev. B 87, 155134 (2013)].

In this talk, I will present a theoretical study of thermal transport in the disordered two-dimensional electron liquid. At temperatures smaller than the impurity scattering rate, in the diffusive regime, thermal conductivity acquires non-analytic quantum corrections. Our approach to this problem is based on an analysis of the heat density-heat density correlation function. To this end, Luttinger’s gravitational potentials are introduced in the action as sources that couple to the heat density. In a two-stage procedure, a renormalization group calculation based on the Keldysh non-linear sigma model in the presence of Luttinger’s gravitational potentials is supplemented with a perturbative study of scattering processes induced by the Coulomb interaction in the sub-temperature energy range. These scattering processes are at the origin of logarithmic corrections violating the Wiedemann-Franz law. As an application, I intend to discuss thermal transport on the metallic side of the metal-insulator transition in Si MOSFETs.
References:
G. Schwiete and A.M. Finkel’stein, PRB 90, 060201 (2014); PRB 90, 155441 (2014); arXiv:1509.02519; arXiv:1510.06529.

We study one-dimensional anisotropic XY-Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain with weak random fields hziSzi by means of Jordan-Wigner transformation to spinless Luttinger liquid with disorder and bosonization technique. First we investigate phase diagram of the system in terms of dimensionless disorder γ=?h2?/J2?1 and anisotropy parameter Δ=Jz/Jxy and find the range of these parameters where disorder is irrelevant in the infrared limit and spin-spin correlations are described by power laws. Then we use the diagram technique in terms of plasmon excitations to study low-temperature behavior of heat conductivity κ and spin conductivity σ in this power-law phase. The obtained Lorentz number L≡κ/σT differs from the value derived earlier by means of memory function method. We argue also that in the studied region inelastic scattering is strong enough to suppress quantum interference in the low-temperature limit.

A nondissipative supercurrent state of a Josephson junction is metastable with respect to the formation of a finite-resistance state. This transition is driven by fluctuations, thermal at high temperatures and quantum at low temperatures. We evaluate the life time of such a state due to quantum fluctuations in the limit when the supercurrent is approaching the critical current. The decay probability is determined by the instanton action for the superconducting phase difference across the junction. At low temperatures, dynamics of the phase is massive and is determined by the effective capacitance, which is a sum of the geometric and intrinsic capacitance of the junction. We model the central part of the Josephson junction either by an arbitrary short mesoscopic conductor described by the set of its transmission coefficients, or by a diffusive wire of an arbitrary length. The intrinsic capacitance can generally be estimated as $C_* \sim G/E_g$, where $G$ is the normal-state conductance of the junction and $E_g$ is the proximity minigap in its normal part. The obtained capacitance is sufficiently large to qualitatively explain hysteretic behavior of the current-voltage characteristic even in the absence of overheating.

Recently in Kapitza Institute a new phase of the superfluid 3He was reported to exist in the aerogel-like nafen structure - the so-called polar phase. As distinct from the other phases - the chiral superfluid 3He-A with Weyl nodes and the fully gapped topological 3He-B with Dirac nodes on the surface - the polar phase has Dirac nodal line in bulk and dispersionless band of Andreev-Majorana fermions on the surface. Being the spin-triplet superfluid with equal-spin pairing the polar phase can support an exotic object - the half-quantum vortex (HQV). Originally the HQVs have been predicted to exist in the Weyl superfluid 3He-A in 1976, but still they have not been observed there: unfavorable combination of spin-orbit and magnetic anisotropy effects on the orientation of the order parameter did not allow to stabilize these vortices in bulk 3He-A under rotation. In nafen, the nearly parallel aerogel strands pin the orbital part of the order parameter of the polar phase. As a result, if the magnetic field is absent or is oriented parallel to nafen strands, the half-quantum vortices win over the conventional single-quantum vortices.
If HQVs are formed in rotation and then the field is tilted with respect to the strands, one expects that the spin-orbit interaction would induce the formation of the topological solitons between the neighboring HQVs providing the peculiar satellite peak in the NMR spectrum. We used this theoretical prediction to stabilize and identify the HQVs in the Helsinki rotated cryostat. For that we cool down a sample of nafen through transition temperature to the polar phase in rotation up to 2.75 rad/s without magnetic field. Then the field is switched on, and in the tilted field we observe a satellite peak in the NMR spectrum. The dependence of the satellite on the rotation velocity, temperature and the field orientation is in agreement with the predictions. If cool-down occurs with the field applied in the transverse direction, no satellite eak is observed. This demonstrates that the single-quantum vortices are formed instead, which have no NMR signatures. in such arrangement these vortices win over the HQVs as expected.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, May 8, 2015, Landau Institute, 11:30 amT.T. Heikkila and G.E. VolovikTopology of Dirac lines and nexus in graphite

We consider the Z_2 topology of the Dirac lines - lines of band
intersection - in graphite.
Four lines (three with topological charge N_1=1 each and one with
N_1=-1) merge near the H-point and annihilate due to summation law 1+1=0.
The merging point is similar to the real-space nexus, the analog of Dirac
monopole at which the Z_2 strings terminate.

We study the thermoelectric transport of a small metallic island weakly coupled to two electrodes by tunnel junctions. In the Coulomb blockade regime, in the case when the ground state of the system corresponds to an even number of electrons on the island, the main mechanism of electron transport at the lowest temperatures is elastic cotunneling. In this regime, the transport coefficients strongly depend on the realization of the random impurity potential or the shape of the island. Using random-matrix theory, we calculate the thermopower and the thermoelectric kinetic coefficient and study the statistics of their mesoscopic fluctuations in the elastic cotunneling regime. The fluctuations of the thermopower turn out to be much larger than the average value.
[Phys. Rev. B 91, 085310 (2015)]

When single-particle excitations of a disordered quantum many-body
system are all localized in the coordinate space, a sufficiently
weak local interaction does not destroy localization at sufficiently
low temperatures. Namely, all many-particle excitations remain
localized in the Fock space, and there is no relaxation or transport
in the system, which is known as many-body localization. It occurs
because the local interaction effectively couples a finite number of
discrete energy levels, corresponding to localized excitations. When
the interaction is weak, these localized excitations are only weakly
mixed.

In contrast to a quantum system, where a continuous energy spectrum
can be obtained only in the limit of the infinite system size, and
is thus subject to localization in the Fock space, in a classical
system (e.g., in the disordered nonlinear Schroedinger chain,
representing the classical limit of the Bose-Hubbard model), motion
can have continuous spectrum already for a finite number of degrees
of freedom, and this leads to chaotic dynamics. Because of this, in
a disordered system with an extensive energy (with however small
density), the probability to be on a chaotic trajectory tends to
unity with increasing system size. This produces finite transport
coefficients at arbitrarily weak nonlinearity.

We consider a class of strongly correlated Fermi systems that possess interaction-induced flat bands, pinned to the Fermi surface. We demonstrate that in such systems, the fundamental Landau equation, connecting the single-particle spectrum to the quasiparticle momentum distribution, fails. We propose a method, allowing to rectify drawbacks of Landau theory and, with the aid of the Pitaevskii identity, generalize equations obtained to apply the method to electron systems of solids. The emergent non-Fermi-liquid behavior, derived from the theory constructed, is compared with relevant experimental data on two-dimensional liquid He-3, heavy-fermion metals and electron-doped high-Tc compounds.

Gapped 2D Dirac materials, in which inversion symmetry is broken by a gap-opening perturbation,
feature a unique valley transport regime. The system ground state hosts dissipationless persistent
valley currents existing even when topologically protected edge modes are absent or when they
are localized due to edge roughness. Topological valley currents in such materials are dominated
by bulk currents produced by electronic states just beneath the gap rather than by edge modes.
Dissipationless currents induced by an external bias are characterized by a quantized half-integer
valley Hall conductivity. The under-gap currents dominate magnetization and the charge Hall effect
in a light-induced valley-polarized state.

The concept of the odd-frequency Cooper pairs was first proposed by Berezinskii in 1974 to describe superfluidity of 3He [1]. Although the odd-frequency superconductivity has never been confirmed in any materials, the odd-frequency pairs appear as the subdominant pairing correlation in various proximity structures such as superconductor / ferromagnet (SF) junctions [2] and normal-metal / superconductor (NS) junctions with unconventional pairing symmetry [3]. In the presentation, we explain what the odd-frequency pairs are, how they appear in such proximity structure, how to detect them, and how they are different from usual even-frequency pairs in the bulk. We first discuss the enhancement of the quasiparticle density of states at the zero-energy [2,4-5] and its influence on the low-energy electric transport [6]. Next we show the paramagnetic property of odd-frequency pairs [7-10] which can be confirmed in the surface impedance measurement at low temperature [11]. We also discuss a relation to the Majorana physics [12-13]. Finally we explain why such unusual pairs appear in inhomogeneous superconducting systems [14].

The concept of the odd-frequency Cooper pairs was first proposed by Berezinskii in 1974 to describe superfluidity of 3He [1]. Although the odd-frequency superconductivity has never been confirmed in any materials, the odd-frequency pairs appear as the subdominant pairing correlation in various proximity structures such as superconductor / ferromagnet (SF) junctions [2] and normal-metal / superconductor (NS) junctions with unconventional pairing symmetry [3]. In the presentation, we explain what the odd-frequency pairs are, how they appear in such proximity structure, how to detect them, and how they are different from usual even-frequency pairs in the bulk. We first discuss the enhancement of the quasiparticle density of states at the zero-energy [2,4-5] and its influence on the low-energy electric transport [6]. Next we show the paramagnetic property of odd-frequency pairs [7-10] which can be confirmed in the surface impedance measurement at low temperature [11]. We also discuss a relation to the Majorana physics [12-13]. Finally we explain why such unusual pairs appear in inhomogeneous superconducting systems [14].

The unconventional (half-integer) quantum Hall effect for a single species of Dirac fermions is analyzed. In the introduction I will discuss experimental measurements of the half-integer Hall conductance g_{xy} of topological insulator surface states and unveil its field theoretical origin.
For the calculation of the conductivity tensor, the following two step procedure is applied. In the first step, semiclassical transport coefficients are derived in the case of both orbital and Zeeman coupling to an external magnetic field. In this context, I plan to give a pedagogic review of the modified Boltzmann transport theory for the anomalous Hall effect. The semiclassical conductivity tensor serves as input parameters for the second step: It consists in the renormalization group treatment of the appropriately modified non-linear sigma model and thus accounts for localization effects. The resulting phase diagram (levitation scenario) will also be discussed in this context. If time permits, I will further explain how to reconcile Laughlin's flux insertion argument with half-integer Hall conductance and/or present the calculation of the current density beyond linear response in the limit of smooth scalar potential.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, December 19, 2014, Landau Institute, 11:30 amAzat SharafutdinovSpin susceptibility and tunneling density of states in quantum dots

We study transport via edge modes of a 2D topological insulator. Topological protection prevents complete localization of the edge states; however, quantum interference effects are still relevant for the transport properties at finite length scales. We mainly focus on the two most experimentally relevant cases: (i) a junction between two quantum Hall insulators with different filling factors and hence an imbalance in the number of right- and left-propagating modes (symmetry class A) and (ii) a relatively thick HgTe quantum well in the insulating state with an arbitrary number of edge modes (symmetry class AII). We derive the distribution of transmission probabilities as a function of the distance between leads. This allows us to demonstrate topological effects in the average conductance and the shot noise of the setup. We also consider mesoscopic fluctuations and compute the variance of conductance. This quantity is strongly influenced by topology in the quantum Hall case. All the calculations are carried out assuming localization effects are weak, i.e., in the short length limit. Technically, this amounts to studying 1D non-linear sigma model with a proper topological term and source fields on the semiclassical level. Remarkably, the semiclassical limit of the 1D sigma model can be exactly mapped onto a fully quantum 0D sigma model of a different symmetry class. This allows us to identify the distribution of transmission probabilities with the spectrum of a certain random matrix.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, November 14, 2014, Landau Institute, 11:30 amP. M. OstrovskyDensity of states in a two-dimensional chiral metal with vacancies

We study quantum interference effects in a two-dimensional chiral metal (bipartite lattice) with vacancies. We demonstrate that randomly distributed vacancies constitute a peculiar type of chiral disorder leading to strong modifications of critical properties at zero energy as compared to conventional chiral metals. In particular, the average density of states diverges as ρ ~ E-1 |lnE|-3/2 and the correlation length Lc ~ |lnE| in the limit E→0. When the average density of vacancies is different in the two sublattices, a finite concentration of zero modes emerges and a gap in the quasiclassical density of states opens around zero energy. Interference effects smear this gap resulting in exponentially small tails at low energies.

Theory seminar, Thursday, October 30, 2014, Kapitza Institute, 11:30 amAndrei Golov (School of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, UK)Dissipation of turbulence in superfluid 4He in the limit of zero temperature

We will review Manchester experiments on quantum turbulence in superfluid 4He generated by various means. The main focus is on the limit of zero temperatures, in which the turbulence is fully represented by tangled quantized vortex lines. In this regime, the dynamics of the vortex lines span length scales from the size of container to nearly atomic scale, at which energy is transmitted to phonons. A quantum cascade of energy, involving individual quantized vortex lines (and hence, having no analogs in classical turbulence), is necessary for the energy of large-scale flow to be transferred to the dissipative short scales. The processes maintaining the cascade are believed to be: hydrodynamic interactions of vortex lines, reconnections of vortex lines, interaction of excitations such as small vortex loops and Kelvin waves on vortex lines. The dissipative length scale can be increased (i.e. the quantum cascade curtailed) by increasing temperature above 0.4 K due to the scattering of thermal excitations by vortex lines.
Three different means of generating turbulence will be discussed (each having an analog in classical turbulence, thus allowing comparison with classical results):
(a) With the towed grid, we produce turbulence that is nearly homogeneous and isotropic. Studying the free decay allows the rate of dissipation to be quantified [6].
(b) An unsteady rotation of a square-shaped container allows to create anisotropic turbulence — that decays more slowly [1,5,6]. In the presence of the steady background rotation, the following phenomena are observed: steady polarization of vortex lines, non-zero threshold for turbulence onset, resonances of inertial waves [4].
(c) With an immersed jet of variable duration and intensity (created by a current of injected electrons), a cross-over from ultraquantum («non-structured» or «Vinen») turbulence to quasiclassical («structured» or «Kolmogorov») turbulence is observed [2,3].
(References:
[1] P. M. Walmsley, A. I. Golov, H. E. Hall, A. A. Levchenko and W. F. Vinen, Dissipation of quantum turbulence in the zero-temperature limit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 265302 (2007).
[2] P. M. Walmsley and A. I. Golov, Quantum and quasiclassical types of superfluid turbulence, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 245301 (2008).
[3] A. I. Golov, P. M. Walmsley, P. Tompsett, Charged Tangles of Quantized Vortices in Superfluid 4He, J. Low Temp. Phys. 161, 509-525 (2010).
[4] P. M. Walmsley and A. I. Golov, Rotating quantum turbulence in superfluid 4He in the T=0 limit, Phys. Rev. B 86, 060518(RC) (2012).
[5] Paul Walmsley, Dmitry Zmeev, Fatemeh Pakpour, and Andrei Golov, Dynamics of quantum turbulence of different spectra, PNAS 111 (Supplement 1) 4691-4698 (2014).
[6] D. E. Zmeev, P. M. Walmsley, A. I. Golov, P. V. E. McClintock, S. N. Fisher, and W. F. Vinen, Turbulence in superfluid 4He generated by various means (in preparation).)

Studying the oscillatory magnetorestance in crossed fields, we found that the product (m*TD) that determines damping of quantum oscillations, to the first approximation is equal in the majority and minority subbands even though the spin polarization degree amounts to about 66%. This result confirms theory predictions that the interaction takes place at high energies > EF rather than within narrow strip of energies EF ± T. To the next approximation, we revealed a difference in the damping factor of the two spin subbands, which causes skewness of the oscillation lineshape. The difference, quantified with the skew factor can be as high as 20%. The skew factor decreases as B∥ or temperature grow, or B⊥ decreases; for low electron densities and high in-plane field the skew factor even changes sign. In contrast to the conventional theory, the product (m*TD) varies with perpendicular field and (nonmonotonically) with temperature. These dependencies explain notable scattering of the m*(n) values experimentally obtained under assumption of the T-independent (m*TD).

The monotonic magnetoconductance in the in-plane field δσ(B,T) was found to scales in a sharp contrast to the theory predictions:
whereas below a density dependent temperature T<T* it scales as theory predicted, (B2/T), at higher temperatures T>T*, it scales as (B2/T2). The latter dependence, hence, mimics the behavior anticipated for the low-temperature diffusive regime of interaction. These functional dependencies are at odd with interaction quantum corrections. The crossover temperature T*(n) correlates well with the inflection point at the strong σ(T) dependence in zero field, inherent for high mobility samples. Our data thus point at the existence of an energy scale T* beyond the EF. The results also call in question the previous attempts to exploit the parallel field MR as a tool to determine Fermi liquid coupling constants, F0a and γ2, and to plot the two-parameter phase diagrams for interacting and disordered 2D electron systems.

We consider small ferromagnetic particles or quantum dots close to Stoner instability, and investigate the dynamics of the total magnetization in the presence of tunneling coupling to the metallic leads. We generalize the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Sch\"on effective action and the corresponding semiclassical equations of motion from the U(1) case of the charge degree of freedom to the SU(2) case of the magnetization. The Langevin forces (torques) in these equations are strongly influenced by the geometric phase. As a first but nontrivial application we predict low temperature quantum diffusion of the magnetization on the Bloch sphere, which is governed by the geometric phase. We propose a protocol for experimental observation of this phenomenon.

Many-body localized (MBL) systems are characterized by the absence of transport and thermalization, and therefore cannot be described by conventional statistical mechanics. In this talk I will discuss the behaviour of local observables in an isolated MBL system following a quantum quench. For the case of a global quench, the local observables reach stationary, highly non-thermal values at long times as a result of slow dephasing characteristic of the MBL phase. These stationary values retain the local memory of the initial state due to the existence of local integrals of motion in the MBL phase. The temporal fluctuations around stationary values exhibit universal power-law decay in time, with an exponent set by the localization length and the diagonal entropy of the initial state. Such a power-law decay holds for any local observable and is related to the logarithmic in time growth of entanglement in the MBL phase. This behaviour distinguishes the MBL phase from both the Anderson insulator (where no stationary state is reached), and from the ergodic phase (where relaxation is expected to be exponential). Quench protocols considered in this talk can be naturally implemented in systems of ultra cold atoms in disordered optical lattices, and the behaviour of local observables provides a direct experimental signature of many-body localization. [arXiv:1408.4105; arXiv:1403.0693]

We study electronic properties of AA-stacked bilayer graphene. In the
single-particle approximation such a system has one electron band and
one hole band crossing the Fermi level. If the bilayer is undoped,
the Fermi surfaces of these bands coincide. Such a band structure is
unstable with respect to a set of spontaneous symmetry violations.
Specifically, strong on-site Coulomb repulsion stabilizes
antiferromagnetic order. At small doping and low temperatures, the
homogeneous phase is unstable and experiences phase separation into
an undoped antiferromagnetic insulator and a metal. The metallic
phase can be either antiferromagnetic (commensurate or
incommensurate) or paramagnetic depending on the system parameters.
We derive the phase diagram of the system on the doping-temperature
plane and find that under certain conditions, the transition from the
paramagnetic to the antiferromagnetic phase may demonstrate
reentrance. The application of the transverse voltage induces the
exciton order parameter coexisting with antiferromagnetism. The value
of this second order parameter is proportional to the biased voltage
and the value of the nearest- neighbor inter-plane Coulomb repulsion.

Scientific Council of the Landau Institute, Friday, September 5, 2014, Landau Institute, 11:30 amM.V. Feigelman and A.S. IoselevichCoulomb blockade for tunneling through a “long island”

We consider a Coulomb blockade effects for tunnelling through a piece
of wire with large resistance $R\gg 1$.
This system can not be treated as a zero-dimensional one, as the dynamics
of internal inhomogeneous degrees of freedom is crucial. At moderately high temperatures the linear conductance $G$ of the system is suppressed
due to the one-dimensional Coulomb zero bias anomaly effect. At low $T$, besides
the standard activational factor, there is an additional $T$-independent (though also exponentially strong!)
suppression of $G$. It arises due to the tunnelling evolution
of the charge in the wire
to the equivipotential distribution. In the intermediate range of $T$ the $G(T)$ dependence
is a power law, as in the phenomenological environmental theory. The effective
``environmental resistance'', entering the power exponent, is found explicitly. It depends on the
length of the wire and on the positions of the contacts.

We study the effects of strong coupling of a localized state charge to one-dimensional electronic channels out of equilibrium. While the state of this charge and the coupling strength determine the scattering phase shifts in the channels, the non-equilibrium partitioning noise induces the tunneling transitions to the localized state. The strong coupling leads to a non-perturbative backaction effect which is manifested in the orthogonality catastrophe and the Fermi edge singularity in the transition rates. The non-Gaussian component of noise brakes the charge symmetry, shifting the position of the tunneling resonance depending on the sign of the dissipative current and the transparency of the noise emitting partitioning quantum point contact.

We show that nonequilibrium phenomena in dispersive Luttinger liquids posses remarkable weak-strong coupling duality between bosonic and fermionic descriptions. The duality manifests itself both in the collisionless dynamics of a density pulse (via crossover from essentially free-fermion evolution to hydrodynamics) and in the relaxation of fermionic and bosonic excitations.

Using the combination of analytical and numerical techniques we develop the theory of quantum criticality in disordered topological multi-channel nanowires of symmetry classes AIII and BDI [1]. The minimal representative phase portrait is characterized by two parameters $(\mu, w)$, where $\mu$ is the external control parameter (e.g. the chemical potential) and $w$ is the disorder strength. With the increase of $w$ at a fixed value of $\mu$ the wires generically undergo a sequence of topological phase transitions before the asymptotic state of a trivial Anderson insulator is reached. The universal description of the systems is given in terms of two parameters $(g,\chi)$, where $g$ is conductance and $\chi$ is a topological angle. Contour lines of half-integer valued $\chi$ in $(\mu, w)$-parameter space define phase boundaries between distinct topological sectors. Upon increasing the length of the wire, the pair $(g, \chi)$ exhibits flow similar to the celebrated two parameter flow describing the class A quantum Hall insulator. However, unlike the quantum Hall system, an exact analytical description of the entire phase diagram can be given. We corroborate the quantitative validity of our theory by comparison to numerical transfer matrix computations.

We study the effect of external potential on transport properties
of the fermionic two-leg ladder model. The response of the system
to a local perturbation is strongly dependent on the ground state
properties of the system and especially on the dominant correlations.
We categorize all phases and transitions in the model (for incommensurate
filling) and introduce ’’hopping-driven transitions’’
that the system undergoes as the inter-chain hopping is increased
from zero. We also describe the response of the system to an ionic
potential. The physics of this effect is similar to that of the single
impurity, except that the ionic potential can affect the bulk properties
of the system and in particular induce true long range order.

Over the last decade, magneto transport in very high Landau levels of high-mobility 2D electron systems (2DES) hosted in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells revealed a variety of new intriguing phenomena. Two prime examples of these phenomena are microwave-induced resistance oscillations (MIRO) and associated zero-resistance states which emerge when a high-mobility 2DES is irradiated by microwave radiation. Another prominent effect is Hall field-induced resistance oscillations (HIRO) which appear in differential resistivity when a system is driven by a dc field. Both MIRO and HIRO originate from inter-Landau level transitions owing to photon absorption and/or impurity scattering.
In this talk I will discuss our recent experimental studies on i) Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in conventional high-mobility 2D electron gas in GaAs/Al0.24Ga0.76As quantum wells irradiated by sub-terahertz (up to 0.4 THz) radiation, ii) MIRO and HIRO in AlxGa1-xAs/Al0.24Ga0.76As quantum wells with x up to 0.0078, and, finally, iii) observation of MIRO in a moderate-mobility 2D hole gas hosted in a pure Ga/Si0.2Ge0.8 quantum well.

Recent progress in realizing topological superconductors has paved the
road to study new physical phenomena resulting from the non-abelian
statistics of the Majorana modes they host. A particularly interesting
situation arises when Majorana bound states in a closed topological
superconducting dot are coupled to external normal leads. In this talk , we
will show that interactions with the quantum dot drive the lead electrons
into a non-Fermi liquid phase, which can be understood by mapping the
problem to a variant of a Kondo system. Interestingly, the non-Fermi liquid
states in these systems are more robust than in the conventional two
channel Kondo problem. This is because realizations with different numbers
of metallic leads are connected to each other by a line of fixed points. We
will conclude with a discussion of the experimental consequences of our
theory.

Thermal and thermoelectric conductivities are ideal probes of interaction effects in correlated electron systems. This is because, in contrast to an electric current, a heat current can be transmitted also by neutral quasiparticles. For instance, energy can be carried by excitations that mediate interactions between other quasiparticles.
In my talk I will present two examples of the dramatic effect of interactions on thermal and thermoelectric transport phenomena. The first is the Nernst effect in the vicinity of the superconducting phase transition. I will discuss the anomalous behavior of the Nernst effect near the magnetic-field-induced quantum critical phase transition. The second example is thermal conductivity in spin liquids. Spin liquids can form in the vicinity of the Mott metal-insulator transition when the charge is gapped while the spin degrees of freedom strongly fluctuate. These low energy excitations, dubbed spinons, can conduct heat. The spinons also exhibit a magnetic interaction that leads to non-Fermi liquid behavior. I will show that even in the absence of disorder this strong interaction provides an efficient relaxation mechanism for the heat current.

We present new results on the bistability effect recently observed [Dorozhkin et al., Nature Physics 7, 336 (2011)] in two-dimensional electron systems subjected to the microwave radiation. The effect appears as switching between two states with different electric potential distribution across a sample. Our results here imply that the main difference between these two states is an opposite direction of a long lengthscale electric field which arises spontaneously under conditions when the observable magnetoresistance tends to zero. Although a possibility of the field reversal is an inherent property of states with spontaneously broken symmetry, so far such effect was never observed under stationary external conditions.

Developing of novel technologies of functionalization of nano-size
ferroelectric samples emerged the growing interest in exploration of
such naturally-formed structures as polarization domains. I will
present two recent results concerning the dynamic and static
properties of domain self-organization.
The first part of my talk will concern the possible
application of the domain structures in emerging technologies of
Terahertz-detecting devices. We have studied the dynamical
permittivity in ferroelectric nanometricaly-thin films with periodic
domain structure, sandwiched between two paraelectric layers. The
resulting frequency-dependent permittivity demonstrates collective
resonance mode in sub-Terahertz frequency region and Debye-like
relaxation behavior at low frequencies.
In the second part of my talk I will consider the study of
domain-shape instabilities, recently observed in the ferroelectric
polymer PVDF-TrFE films having the lower orthorhombic crystallographic
symmetry and demonstrating the hexagonal domain faceting. This effect
can arise from purely electrostatic depolarizing forces. We show that
in contrast to magnetic bubble shape domains where such type of
deformation instability has a predominantly elliptical character, the
emergence of more symmetrical circular harmonics is favored in
ferroelectrics with high dielectric constant.